Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule From the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence

by David Brewer

  This last initiative was entrusted to Xánthos, but it was another two years before he was successful. Meanwhile he was recruiting for the society in Greece, and claims in his memoirs that in 1818 he recruited perhaps the most distinguished of all Greeks, the patriarch Grigórios V. ‘Having travelled to Mt Athos,’ he wrote, ‘I initiated the Patriarch Grigórios of blessed memory.’7 It is true that Grigórios was out of office from 1808 to the end of 1818, between his second and last patriarchate, and spent some of that time on Mt Athos, but nevertheless Xánthos’ claim is very odd. No accusation of membership of the society was mentioned in the denunciation of Grigórios that was attached to his hanging corpse by the Turkish authorities, though perhaps they did not know of his alleged links to it. He is not included in any list of the society’s members. Membership would have been completely at odds with his public pronouncements. Possibly Grigórios, temporarily out of touch with the politics of the day and with his mind on spiritual matters, expressed general support for the Philikí Etería because he assumed from its innocuous name that it was no more than a sort of benevolent society. Or possibly Xánthos simply invented the episode to give the society extra credibility.

  At the end of January 1820 Xánthos arrived in St Petersburg on his mission to find a leader for the society. His target was Iánnis Kapodhístrias, who would be an ideal head if he could be persuaded to accept the post. He was a Greek born in Corfu, and as a young man had been prominent in the politics of the Ionian islands. He won the respect of the Russians during their occupation of the islands, was invited to join the Russian diplomatic service and in 1815 was appointed the Tsar’s joint foreign minister. Kapodhístrias therefore not only had all the necessary personal and professional qualifications to lead the society, but also his acceptance would strongly indicate Russian support for the movement.

  However, Xánthos knew that Kapodhístrias was unlikely to accept his offer, since Kapodhístrias had rebuffed two earlier appeals. But the approach to him had to be made; for Xánthos to bypass him would be an affront. Xánthos’ best hope was that Kapodhístrias, if he again refused, would suggest an alternative candidate. At the end of two long meetings Kapodhístrias, who would not shift his position, told Xánthos that ‘if the leaders of the society knew of other means to carry out their object, let them use them.’8 The suggestion of seeking ‘other means’ was near enough to what Xánthos had been angling for.

  Xánthos had almost certainly had an alternative candidate in mind all along, for within weeks he had approached Alexander Ipsilántis. Ipsilántis was of Greek descent and during service in the Russian army had lost an arm. Members of his distinguished family had been Ottoman-appointed governors of Wallachia and Moldavia, he was a personal friend of both Kapodhístrias and the Tsar, and his two brothers were already members of the Philikí Etería. Xánthos made sure that Ipsilántis was enthusiastically committed to the cause of Greek liberation before offering him the leadership, which Ipsilántis accepted without hesitation. In April 1820 a document, signed by Xánthos and Ipsilántis, appointed Ipsilántis as leader not of the Philikí Etería but of the Ellinikí Etería, the Greek Association. From its parochial beginnings the society was now within sight of becoming a national movement.

  Ipsilántis resigned from the Russian army and spent the rest of 1820 and the early months of 1821 preparing for revolution. He travelled, often with Xánthos, throughout southern Russia and the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, contacting sympathisers and raising and distributing money. Letters were also sent to the Greek leaders in the Peloponnese, and Kolokotrónis wrote that ‘twenty letters at least came to me from Ipsilántis, bidding me hold myself in readiness with all my people, as the day of the rising was fixed for 25 March.’9

  The Philikí Etería prompted other preparations in Greece, and two meetings were particularly significant. One was a meeting in late January 1821, on the Ionian island of Levkás, of the military leaders of Roumeli, that is Greece north of the Gulf of Corinth. The meeting was set up on instructions from a representative of Ipsilántis as head of the Philikí Etería to the society’s local leader, in whose house the meeting took place. Levkás was an excellent place for such an assembly: it was British territory, but far enough from Corfu to avoid British watchfulness, and was conveniently close to Turkish territory, though not part of it, so that pretexts to lull Turkish suspicions were not needed.

  Those gathered at Levkás were the three leading members of the local Philikí Etería, ten Roumeliot captains, and two further delegates: Ilías Mavromichális, representing his father Petrobey and the interests of the Peloponnese, and Iakoumákis Tombázis, representing the island of Hydra. Military decisions were taken: 25 March, the Festival of the Annunciation, was accepted as the date for a general rising, Ilías Mavromichális prudently emphasised to his northern colleagues the importance of holding passes to prevent Turkish forces reaching the Peloponnese, and each captain was instructed to raise the revolt in his own area. Finally, two superior commanders were appointed: for eastern Roumeli Odysseus Andhroútsos and for western Roumeli Iánnis Varnakiótis, both of whom had served in Ali Pasha’s forces. In the event Varnakiótis ‘showed the greatest reluctance to commence hostilities, but he was obliged to yield to the opinions of his colleagues, and of his own brother’,10 and eventually launched a successful attack on Agrínion, some twenty miles north of Mesolongi. The reputations of both Varnakiótis and Andhroútsos were later tainted by accusations of treachery, which Varnakiótis lived to see rebutted but Andhroútsos did not.

  The other meeting, also held at the end of January 1821, was at Vóstitsa, modern Éyio, on the south shore of the Gulf of Corinth. Unlike Levkás this was on Turkish territory, so for a gathering of prominent Greeks a pretext was needed: that they were meeting to settle a boundary dispute between two local monasteries. Here too the initiative came from a representative of the Philikí Etería, the firebrand and hectoring orator Papaphléssas. A letter from him to Xánthos is typical: ‘We need action! Talk is not work, and you do not become a man by sitting in clubs or by warming yourself at a stove. I say these things emphatically, since so much time has been wasted. The fault is yours. Finally, if the skies are dark now, they may be darker still in the future.’11 At the Vóstitsa meeting Papaphléssas blustered in grandiose style, threatening that if the others were reluctant he would start the revolution himself with a band of 1,000 men from the Mani and another thousand from elsewhere, and warning that the Turks would then kill anyone who was not armed.

  The meeting was attended by four bishops, other clergy, and many of the political leaders of the Peloponnese. The dominant figure was Bishop Yermanós of the see of Old Pátras some twenty miles west of Vóstitsa. He had held this office since 1806, had influence throughout Greece, and was a member of the Philikí Etería. He regarded Papaphléssas as an unmitigated rogue and charlatan, describing him in his memoirs as ‘a cheat and rotten through and through, thinking of nothing else but how to stir up trouble among the people so as to enrich himself by plunder’.12

  The meeting spread over four days and Yermanós began by posing a string of highly pertinent questions:

  •

  Is the whole Greek nation willing to rise in revolt, and will it follow our lead?

  •

  What are the absolute necessities for the struggle? What do we need, what have we got, and where is the rest to come from?

  •

  How and when should the rising begin? Should our attacks be simultaneous or one after another?

  •

  Is a foreign power [meaning Russia] ready to help us? What form will any promised support take, and how firm is the promise?

  •

  If any foreign power opposes us, what do we do?

  •

  Who will lead the revolution in other parts of Greece?

  •

  Will Greeks in Europe, especially the educated ones, join the struggle?

  •

  If we fail to sei
ze power, what then?

  •

  If the Turks learn of our plans in advance, what action do we take?

  The consensus of those at the meeting, as summarised by Yermanós, was clearly for caution. Most Greeks, they thought, still had no idea about the coming struggle. After the experience of the failed Orlov revolt 50 years before, to start the revolution in the Peloponnese without reliable support would be madness. The attitude of the European powers, especially Russia, was unknown, and virtually all supplies needed to make war were lacking. The conclusion was inescapable: the time was not yet ripe for revolution.

  Some practical decisions flowed from this, mainly to do with disseminating and gathering information. Envoys were sent to tell the leaders of other regions in the Peloponnese about the result of the conference, and in particular Petrobey Mavromichális, who was probably the most powerful figure of the Peloponnese not present at Vostítsa. Further messengers were sent to collect information, some to probe the intentions of the crucial naval islands Hydra and Spétses, others to Kapodhístrias to discover Russia’s attitude, and to the exiled bishop of Árta, now in Pisa, for information about the other European powers.

  Finally, a decision was taken on how to respond when the bishops and leaders of the Peloponnese were next summoned to Tripolis for the regular six-monthly meeting with the Ottoman authorities on taxation and public order. If they went, they might be seized as hostages, whereas if they refused they would arouse Turkish suspicions. On balance it was decided that they should make excuses not to attend, should announce that they were going to Constantinople to put their grievances to the Sultan, and should go into hiding in their own districts or in the islands until the situation became clearer.

  Thanks to the initiatives of the Philikí Etería, an organisation to start the revolution was now in place. In many ways it was sketchy, and by no means all the Greek leading figures were committed to it. It might have come to nothing without the opportunity to put it into effect.

  On a wider view the opportunity was offered by the ending of the Napoleonic wars. While these were in progress the European powers were wholly preoccupied with their own battles, and there was no possibility that any of them could be persuaded to support in any way – military, financial or diplomatic – a Greek struggle for independence. Of the philhellenes who after Napoleon’s defeat came to Greece to support the rising many were former soldiers, serving till 1815 in their national armies but now unemployed. Furthermore, until peace came, philhellenes, whether ex-soldiers or idealists, would have found it very difficult to cross Europe and take ship for Greece from French ports, as hundreds did from Marseille in 1821 and 1822.

  The ending of the Napoleonic wars was not an unmixed advantage for the Greeks. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the four victors over Napoleon – Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia – formed the Quadruple Alliance. Three years later France, no longer seen as a threat, was added, making it a Quintuple Alliance. The primary aim of the alliance was to maintain the peace of Europe, which meant that the European powers, even if sympathetic to the Greeks, were not willing to support them in their attempt to overthrow their established Turkish government. Ultimately Britain, Russia and France did intervene, but in the early years of the rising it was individual philhellenes and not governments who came to the aid of Greece.

  The international situation in 1821 therefore offered a generalised opportunity that was at least in some ways promising for the Greeks. But a more specific opportunity for a successful rising was needed. This was to be by the diversion of Turkish troops from Greece, and Ipsilántis aimed to achieve this by leading a force from Russia to raise rebellion against the Turks in Moldavia and Wallachia. One of the reasons for starting the revolt there was, says Xánthos, ‘in order to attract all the attention and forces of the enemy to the Danubian regions, so that the Greek lands should remain with only small enemy forces’.13 There were other reasons for Ipsilántis to change his original plan of taking his forces to the Peloponnese to start the rising there, not least the difficulty of shipping them from the Black Sea to Greece and passing through the Bosphorus within sight of the Sultan’s palace. But if Ipsilántis had succeeded in diverting Turkish forces to the Danube it would have been a great help to the Greeks.

  But Ipsilántis’ expedition achieved nothing. In early March 1821 he and his troops crossed from Russia into Moldavia and by early April had reached Bucharest. He had met little opposition so far, but also had attracted little support: most of the local leaders were interested in carving out territory for themselves rather than backing Ipsilántis, and the people hated Ipsilántis’ troops who, being short of supplies, were plundering the country. The Turkish troops already stationed in the fortresses along the Danube were more than a match for Ipsilántis, and in the single direct engagement with the Turks the young Greeks of Ipsilántis’ 500-strong Sacred Battalion were cut to pieces in a battle on a muddy field in which 400 of them were killed. In June with a few companions Ipsilántis escaped northwards into Austrian territory, leaving his army to face the consequences of his failure, and in a final vindictive despatch blaming that failure on them. Ipsilántis was imprisoned at Munkács, then reputed to be one of the unhealthiest places in Hungary; he was freed in 1827 with his health broken and died in the following year. His expedition had done nothing to further the cause of revolution or to help the Greeks.

  Turkish forces were in fact diverted in the crucial early months of 1821 by a quite different operation, one that had nothing to do with the Philikí Etería: the Turkish campaign to crush Ali Pasha of Iánnina. Ali, nominally the Turkish-appointed governor of the Iánnina area, with his massive and widespread landholdings and with his two sons as governors of other parts of Greece, had become virtually independent. Moreover he was in constant negotiations with the French, British and Russians, with whose help he might defy the Ottoman government and become independent in fact. In the summer of 1820 Sultan Mahmud II sent an army against him.

  The Turks’ siege of Iánnina made slow progress, partly because the army was so badly organised and poorly provisioned and partly because it had an incompetent general. In January 1821 this general was dismissed and the Sultan appointed in his place Khurshid Pasha, the governor of the Peloponnese, who moved north to Iánnina, taking with him his best troops. Khurshid, energetic and capable, had taken up office only in the previous November, so had not had time to assess how serious were the indications of a Greek rising. He left behind as acting governor his deputy, described as ‘a young man of an arrogant disposition and no military experience’,14 who was not replaced by a more able governor until mid-May. Thus during the crucial early months when the Greek rising established itself there was no effective Turkish control of the Peloponnese, and the best Turkish troops were elsewhere.

  Moreover, the siege of Iánnina dragged on, the town was not taken until January 1822, and Ali was finally killed a month later. The Turkish forces assembled at Iánnina were estimated as at least 20,000 strong and in some accounts double that number, of whom only 10,000 could be belatedly spared to fight the Greeks in the Peloponnese. Thus the diversion of Turkish forces that Ipsilántis had tried but failed to achieve was unintentionally created by Ali Pasha.

  Every account of the early months of 1821 speaks of the atmosphere of feverish expectation combined with frightened apprehension that prevailed among both Turks and Greeks, especially in the Peloponnese. The Turks took steps to strengthen the coastal fortresses, and in Pátras the resident Turks took refuge in the town’s citadel, taking their families and their property with them. On the Greek side the adherents of the Philikí Etería raised money and began to assemble war supplies, with the result that by March there was no powder or shot to be bought in the Pátras bazaar. News from the Danubian principalities wildly exaggerated Ipsilántis’ achievements, and some thought that the coming revolution would be instantly successful: ‘We shall go to bed in Turkey and wake up in Greece.’15 In the event the Greeks’ war of ind
ependence lasted a decade, not the single night of the optimists.

  22

  1821 – The War of Independence

  The war of independence is popularly supposed to have been started on 25 March 1821, a date still celebrated annually in Greece with apparently undiminished fervour. The scene was the monastery of Ayía Lávra in the northern Peloponnese, and the leading figure was Georgios Yermanós, bishop of Old Pátras, who had presided over the revolutionary meeting at Vóstitsa in January. According to the story Yermanós refused to attend the regular meeting of Greek leaders with the Turkish authorities and went instead to Ayía Lávra, where a crowd assembled that quickly swelled to 5,000, the same number as those to whom Christ preached in the desert. After a Te Deum Yermanós celebrated Mass and then addressed the assembled throng. Do not expect help from abroad, he told them. Their supreme principle must be to conquer or die, and he concluded: ‘Our whole history, and our whole future, are enshrined in the words religion, freedom and fatherland.’ He then released the faithful from their Lenten fast, declaring that since the life and religion of all were under threat they must have strength to defend the people and the altar.1

  Yermanós was in fact in that part of the Peloponnese at about that time, but the rest of this legend-creating account was pure invention, from the pen of the unreliable historian François Pouqueville. The revolution actually broke out sporadically in a number of different towns in the Peloponnese during late March 1821, but there were good reasons why Pouqueville’s story was adopted. A single defining date was needed for the later annual celebrations. To avoid disputes over primacy it was better not to place the start of the revolution in one particular town or attribute it to one of its most prominent leaders. Yermanós was a good choice as protagonist, being famous but not too famous. He had been a friend for many years of the patriarch Grigórios V, but he had sufficient status to reject the patriarch’s instruction to the Greeks to obey their rulers. He played an active part in the early days of the revolution but was not one of its most celebrated figures, and when he died in 1826 he was forgotten, wrote Thomas Gordon ‘as soon as the grave closed over him’.2 That the story puts a bishop in centre-stage emphasises its main message, of the revolution’s link to religion: the date, which coincided with the Festival of the Annunciation, the setting at a monastery, the gathering of a Biblical 5,000, and religion ahead even of freedom and fatherland. In only one respect is religion given second place: Church observances such as the Lenten fast must not stand in the way of the fight for freedom.